Music that was way ahead of its time

Blisterman

I'm always fascinated to discover music from the past, which was way ahead of its time upon its initial release. Not necessarily songs which influenced others and changed the course of music, instead ones which by fluke or accident hit upon something which would only later be popular.

Some examples.

This track from 1969 was famously sampled by DJ Shadow 26 years later, but sounds itself like it could have been released in the 90's. It's almost trip-hop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsZhaqfYLRE

This track from 1982, which was an attempt at creating indian ragas on keyboards and drum machines inadvertently inventing psych trance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUqnPYwoiF4

Gil Scott-Heron rapping back in 1972, a full 7 years before Rapper's Delight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJziJGrASo

rcaz

Blisterman wrote: »

Inadvertently inventing psych trance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUqnPYwoiF4

You mean acid house, right?


As for Gil Scott Heron rapping, rapping could be traced right back to much older talking blues tracks. I don't think Gil invented anything, just carried on that tradition.

Dr conrad murray

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spjcPS4ekOA

recorded in 1966, it has endless overdubs and the backwards drum loops all prefigure in some way the idea of sampling technology

patakadarragh

Jean Michel Jarre

Rothko

This was released in 1972 but still sounds futuristic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RczWDQmKQtA

notnumber

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS_CLIF1h-o

Any excuse to post that but the orignal sample used was composed by moondog ..a blind guy who was a 'homeless'? street musican in nyc 40-70's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moondog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSimbyS_YlA

SilverScreen

Blisterman wrote: »

Gil Scott-Heron rapping back in 1972, a full 7 years before Rapper's Delight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKJziJGrASo

I'll see your Gil Scott-Heron and raise you Pigmeat Markham. This guy was rapping in 1968

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvMBxlu62c0

Also here's DNA accidently inventing thrash metal in 1978

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj_yX3yS8Dk

Gonzovision

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68C-r9kSLNE

dasdog

1956

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMbC__R24t0

latenia

Silver Apples-it's hard to believe this was from 1967. I'd say it was 30 years before popular music 'caught up' with them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1knVQEkEElM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_apples

SubBusted

French synth coldwave from 30 years ago (1982) but sounds like a recent drum and bass tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AQfvXrzUNI

iamstop

Kool Keith basically invented off time rapping. And interplanetary galactic raps but he was heavily influenced by a disco group called Sun

Afrika Bambaataa's Planet Rock is credited as being the 1st track to sample. Sampled Trans Europe Express by Kraftwerk.

Blowfly's Rapp Dirty was using curse works long before NWA: http://www.maxilyrics.com/blowfly-rapp-dirty-lyrics-c6fb.html

Doug E. Fresh - First human beatbox

Herbie Hancock - Rockit had scratching sounds in it that many of today's best turntablist's claim got them started.

HalloweenJack

http://www.cracked.com/article_19094_6-songs-that-were-decades-ahead-groundbreaking-music.html

SilverScreen

HalloweenJack wrote: »

http://www.cracked.com/article_19094_6-songs-that-were-decades-ahead-groundbreaking-music.html

I read this a while back, a very interesting article.

SubBusted

For fans of Philip Glass/Steve Reich/John Adams - this similar classical music came out in the 1930s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOm6TM-QPRI

youtube!

This band and song was ahead of its time, there was no such thing as drum machines back in 1973 but that didnt stop Becker Fagen and especially engineer Roger Nicholls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QVNbUPzgM




Innovations for 'Countdown to Ecstasy', and 'The hand'
When Becker and Fagen expressed frustration during the band's second album Countdown to Ecstasy with the difficulty in acquiring a steady drum tempo, Nichols was forced to improvise. The track Show Biz Kids had proved especially challenging in regards to a steady beat. As quoted in Brian Sweet's biography of Steely Dan, Reelin' in the Years, Nichols recalled:
"It was just one of those tunes that that was so very difficult to play exactly in tempo, with every instrument in sync. ... There were no drum machines in those days, so we made a 24 track, eight bar tape loop, which at 30 ips was a considerable length of tape, trailed it out through the door into the studio, around a little idler which was set up on a camera tripod, back into the studio and then copied that to a second 24 track machine. Everything was on tape except the lead vocal and the lead guitar. It worked like a dream.

SubBusted

Stone Roses of the 1970s?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkMVKOjsS_Y

youtube!

Oh and of course no thread about music and innovation would be complete without a nod to the inventor of the overdub Mr Les Paul. Genius.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZFKeyGpgK0

NIMAN

Fleetwood Mac "Tusk"

SubBusted

New order's Blue Monday of the 1970s?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9u5rfyTIoo

Blisterman

If they'd added a few wobbles to this song from 1984, they could have invented dubstep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux3u31SAeEM

johnROSS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJIqnXTqg8I

Pigeon Reaper

Very early synth.

notnumber

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtETzKAxuzM

Joe Meek 1967..

Dont know about waaaay ahead of his time but certainly a pioneering artist..

From wiki:
He passed up the chance to work with the then unknown David Bowie, the Beatles (the latter he once described as "just another bunch of noise, copying other people's music") and Rod Stewart. John Repsch, in The Legendary Joe Meek recounts that upon hearing Stewart sing, Meek rushed into the studio, put his fingers in his ears and screamed until Stewart had left. He preferred to record instrumentals with the band he sang with – the Moontrekkers.
His commercial success as a producer was short-lived and Meek gradually sank into debt and depression. On 3 February 1967, using a shotgun owned by musician Heinz Burt, Meek killed his landlady and then himself.

A very interesting read!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Meek

Scubadevils

Visage - Frequency 7 - 1979

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA9YrUktxDU

A Number of Names - Sharevari - 1981

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeF0xTdHPfA

Nitzer Ebb - Let Your Body Learn (12 inch mix) - 1986

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxt6ADTWrXk

bullpost

The first Roxy Album sounds like nothing else.
It introduced Brian Eno to the world and he was producing sounds then that still sound fresh.
The groups highly stylised retro/futuristic look was a huge influence on punk and the New Romantics.
And Brian eno went on to invent ambient and produce all that great Talking Heads music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVeEBMJt8vs

Blowfish

Kind of suprised this hasn't been mentioned yet as it's fairly obvious, but Pachelbel's Canon from 1680:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOA-2hl1Vbc

Which appears again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

And again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea8u_hKU-eo

And again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGmAzYW6-Yk

And again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPPIoXoRg7E

And again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzhYD7sM8fQ

rubadub

Dr conrad murray wrote: »

I remember playing tomorrow never knows in my friends house and his younger sister, about 20 or so, going mad when we told her it was the beatles -she thought we were taking the piss out of her and was convinced it was the chemical brothers.

I reckon many happy mondays fans have no idea step on was a cover of a 1971 track

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWxgbWI--cI

It is cited in the Guinness Book of Records as being the first song to have used a sample,[citation needed] however, according to the sleeve note of the CD reissue of the Kongos album, it is actually a tape loop of African drumming, and the use of tape loops and instruments using prerecorded samples such as the Mellotron and Optigan were well established by this time. It is likely that this record was confused with Burundi Black by Mike Steiphenson, which sampled "Ensemble de Tambours" from the album "Musique du Burundi" due to it being released in the same year and spending the same amount of time in the charts.

Think this is from 1972

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPVI73Ocxg8

I saw it listed as a sampled track on a Liam Howlett cd (from the prodigy) then heard it and found out he had done feck all to it!

SubBusted

This is from 1906:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ0w5ay4fbg

Sound familiar?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7giOrKYIwpQ